Judi: My sight’s so bad I talk to wrong people
DAME Judi Dench admits her eyesight is so bad that she often talks to the wrong person on set.
And the actor, 86, said she feels like she is falling to pieces while getting older.
The Oscar-winner has suffered age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most-common cause of sight loss in the UK, since 2012. She also had a knee replacement in 2014.
She said: “The macular degeneration was caught early. I’ve had all the injections in my left eye.And that’s OK.
“The right one is hopeless. It means I can’t do the crossword and I have to find another way of learning things, which is through my friends.Thank goodness.”
Despite having her script text enlarged, her failing eyesight still causes her problems as she found while working on new film Belfast about Kenneth Branagh’s childhood.
As a result of new Covid protocols actors have to wear mask when filming and it made it impossible for Dame Judi to recognise her co-stars.
She said: “We all wore masks, but because my eyesight is so
appalling, I used to go up to the wrong people a lot. Go up to the wrong actors off the set and not quite know who people are.”
Admitting her old age is also affecting her memory, she said: “I have more and more forgetful moments I’m afraid.
“Yes. I’ve had knee surgery. I’ve had a replacement on my right knee and an arthroscopy on my left knee.
“I mean, it’s wonderful but I’m falling to pieces in bits.”
Despite her years, Dame Judi still has no plans for slowing down. During lockdown she’s become a Tik Tok sensation with her grandson and is still hoping to learn the sonnets of Shakespeare – a goal she set herself at the start of lockdown last March.
Failed
She said: “During this lockdown, I just have tried to learn new things. I could do a huge amount of Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night and a few others.
“I really decided at the beginning of lockdown, I would attempt to learning the Sonnets.
“Well, I haven’t done that have I? I’ve failed miserably.
“So I’ve got a couple more weeks, I think before we might come out of a bit of lockdown, so I better get on with it.” ●Dame Judi has called on Boris Johnson to ban fur sales. She is among 50 celebrities demanding the end to animal cruelty in a letter to the Prime Minister.
TEENAGER Lily Wood was overjoyed youngsters will soon get Kuvan but last night wept knowing that she is missing out.
Lily, 19, has been a leading PKU campaigner and even forced Boris Johnson to wade into the Kuvan drug row.
Last summer, the drama student wrote to the Prime Minister asking why sufferers were still waiting. He rang her family vowing to find a solution.
Now Lily has blasted the Nice decision excluding over-18s from access to Kuvan.
She fumed: “I’m so delighted for all the young children who will soon be able to access Kuvan this summer.
“But I’m also angry that Nice have deemed over-18 year olds not worth the cost of this important drug.
“It feels like a kick in the teeth and I worry that all they have thought about was the short-term.
“What about the long-term mental and physical health of adults who have seen their hopes dashed?
“And what about children who will get it, then turn 18 and be told they must now come off it?”
Lily, of West Drayton, Middlesex, wrote to the Prime Minister explaining how unlike smokers or the obese, she and other sufferers had no choice about having PKU.
She wrote: “PKU sufferers didn’t choose to have PKU; they didn’t get this condition through making unhealthy life choices.
“Our lives are polystyrene-tasting bread and painstaking counting and measuring of food.
“Kuvan could mean most of us could enjoy food – instead of seeing it as our enemy. We don’t want to be hungry anymore.”
Parents Chris, 57, and Hayley Wood, 45, told us that Lily must carefully weigh and measure every meal and snack and eats prescribed bread with fruit and vegetables.
Hayley said: “She has really suffered over the years and this ruling could have been a glimmer of light but now we are despairing again.”
‘Will children have to come off it when they turn 18?’
SIMON Cowell says the bike accident that broke his back “nearly smashed my spine to pieces” – but insists he now feels better than he did before.
The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent boss, 61, had six hours of emergency surgery last year following the accident.
He missed the finals of last year’s series of BGT and has kept a low profile since.
Speaking about the incident on US TV for the first time, Simon said: “It could have been a lot worse. When I saw the X-ray, I really nearly could have smashed my spine to pieces. So I literally wouldn’t have been able to walk. I knew I’d broken my back the minute I landed. It was really kind of sudden and it hurt.”
Reflecting on how the moment had changed his life, Simon said that without partner Lauren and son Eric’s unwavering support and care he “couldn’t have got through it”. He insisted the accident had brought them closer as a family.
Simon added: “I’ve never been in this situation in my life where you literally can’t move. The pain was off the charts. But you’ve got to stay positive.
“I made a promise to myself I’d be fitter than I was before I had the accident. Sure enough, that’s what happened.” He said the worst part of his ordeal was the fear of “embarrassing” himself in front of his seven-year-old son Eric.
He said: “I was so embarrassed about coming home looking about 100, because I couldn’t walk, and I have these metal rods in my back and these screws.
“I said, ‘Lauren, I just don’t know how to explain it to Eric.’
“She obviously said something to him because he came in. I was lying in bed and he said, ‘Daddy, you’re like Iron Man’.
“And I thought that was the sweetest thing and it meant a lot.”
Simon had fallen off an electric bike he was testing at his house in Malibu, California, in August.
He added: “I’ve got to be honest with you, it wasn’t that bad actually, breaking
your back. I mean it wasn’t great for three to four weeks but, after that, you get through it. I had to do so much exercise. I actually feel better than I did before the accident.”
He then joked: “If you want to feel healthier, break your back.”
Simon was forced to miss out on filming the latest season of America’s Got Talent due to his injuries. However, his co-stars including judges Sofia Vergara, Howie Mandel, and Heidi Klum, and host Terry Crews – said they did miss the pop mogul.
While the US version of the hit talent show is going ahead, it was announced last month that Britain’s Got Talent will not take place in 2021 due to the pandemic. ITV said the programme was pulled from the schedules in order to safeguard “the wellbeing and health of every person involved”.
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Eric said ‘Daddy, you’re like Iron Man,’ and I thought that was the sweetest thing